May 24, 2013

After attending Nicky Hockly's session at IATEFL, I wanted to try a type of dictation which she presented to teachers. Students use any notetaking app from their own cell phones to type sentences the teacher dictates. DETAIL: the teacher dictates the sentences letter by letter and students add the gaps between words as they see fit.

The objective of the lesson yesterday was for students to be able to talk about obligations and necessities using MUST/ MUSTN'T , SHOULD/ SHOULDN'T, HAVE TO / DON'T HAVE TO.

The course book we use is New English File Intermediate (unit 3A). The language topic of the lesson is CELL PHONES.

I decided the mobile dictation would be a good warmer for this class. I created 4 sentences using the modals mentioned above.

This is the sequence we used:

1. I divided the students into groups of 3 students.

2. Students would use their cell phones for a dictation (if any student didn't have a cell phone, they would use pencil + notebook for the same activity).

3. I dictated the questions, letter by letter, without repeating it. At the end of each question, students could compare their sentences with the other members of their group.

4. After the dictation, I elicited the questions on the board.

5. Students used the same questions to develop a conversation with their group.

MY IMPRESSIONS:

I was surprised to see ALL my students had their cell phones with them.

They were totally involved with the activity and fully concentrated.

It was an excellent exercise for spelling and their perception for when a word would end and the next one would start.

Asking them to check their sentences with the group seemed to be a good idea as they interacted with each other.

May 22, 2013

It is given to "bloggers who are positive and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere"

Receiving this award from you, Claudio, means a lot. You know I'm a great fan of the work you develop at MOVIE SEGMENTS TO ASSESS GRAMMAR GOALS and the time you devote to sharing your wonderful activities with fellow teachers.

As with other similar awards, there are certain rules that must be followed:

Rule 1. Post the Sunshine Award logo on your blog.

Rule 2. Nominate 5 to 10 other wonderful bloggers.

Rule 3. Announce their nomination in their blog’s comment section.

Rule 4 .Mention links back to their blog, including a link to the person who nominated you.

Rule 5. Answer seven questions about yourself. This is designed to help people get to know you better.

May 20, 2013

This activity was inspired by some posters I discovered at Pinterest by the ever so creative Tony Vincent.
He created some posters where he provides the beginning of the quotes by famous people and then omits the ending by using QR CODES. In his post, he says he normally sticks these posters on the walls during workshops for teachers. http://learninginhand.com/blog/2013/1/30/quotes-with-qrcodes

Last week, I tried something different. I created my own posters with quotes by famous people about the topic LEARNING and turned them into a SPEAKING ACTIVITY.

May 17, 2013

In a few minutes, one more Virtual Round Table event is about to start.

If you've never attended one, it's a FREE Web Conference for ELT teachers.

About 79 presenters from different parts of the world will be presenting talks on educational topics during 48 hours. You don't need to attend all the sessions, just have a look at the program, choose the talks which interest you and click on the ROOM NAME (Ex: ROOM MERLIN in the program) to join the web room. Participants can participate via chat sending questions and comments.

May 10, 2013

It's wonderful to see how much you can learn (I was going to say "from your own couch") anywhere you are w/ a smartphone. In case you didn't have a chance to go to IATEFL 2013 personally, I've heard lots of people followed the conference via LIVERPOOL ONLINE . They recorded many of the sessions, unfortunately, not all.

Like I said in a previous post, most of the sessions I attended were related to the Learning Technologies SIG.

May 3, 2013

I guess everyone who uses the web on a regular basis has a routine for reading and bookmarking what they find useful. The two tools I use the most for BOOKMARKING are Diigo and Pinterest.
These are some of the bookmarks I saved this week and would like to share with you.

This is a QUIZ SCORER which I've learned via a colleague, Georgia Teixeira. You enter the names of teams and quickly can start keeping the score on the screen. Great for IWBs.

WELCOME!

I'm Ana Maria Menezes. An EFL teacher, teacher developer and online moderator. An enthusiastic blogger and curious researcher. M.A. in Linguistic Studies with special interest in teacher development in online environments.